Sebring 12 Hours: Glory And Heartbreak.

Photo: Jim Hunter

It's a classic,  a $14.37  part failed and dropped the 31 Axis of Oversteer Porsche GTC from class leader  with less than 3 hours to 12 laps down.

Kuba admiring wielbłąd toe

As we had mentioned in or previous piece,  the race pace was there,  Kuba Giermaziak especially was just ripping on the old Florida concrete.  Time and again he would haul in the leaders.  Strategy was working well, CG as the "gent"driver was more than holding his own with not just other "gents" but with some of the pros.  All ws looking beyond out wildest expectations until the rear bumper cover came adrift.

Jamey Price caught the 31 dragging the bumper

CG was at the wheel when it happened but he has no idea how, he did not hit anyone and nobody hit him.   A mystery,  but the upshot was that the rear lights were damaged.   It turns out Porsche tail lights are notorious for popping out of their sockets with very little prodding.  Usually they get taped down,  for whatever reason, this was not done on the 31 car.  New clusters went in during a longish pit stop as the sun began to set.  Lucky at the time it was under a safety car period so it dropped us from P2 to P4.  Kuba, in attack mode dragged the car all the way back to P2 and pressuring Sean Edwards in P1.  Edwards made a mistake and went off leaving  the underdog Axis team in the lead and looking good.

It was good while it lasted but it was not to be, as darkness fell on Sebring, the officials demanded the team take care of the rear lights, both of which need to work under the regulations, only one of ours did so Kuba had to come in.
The NGT crew worked feverishly on the rear but the one light would just not come on.  In the end they found the brake pedal sensor had failed and somehow was just sending signal just to the one side.

Eventually the car was fired back up but our race was over.

Congratulations to Carlos, Kuba and Mario for a damn good effort and to Ramez and all at NGT for giving them such a good car.   Axis is gutted but Axis was also on TV leading the 12 hours of Sebring and that's just amazing.

The mystery of what actually happened to the rear bumper cover remains,  if you were at Sebring and can find us evidence solving said mystery,  we will send you one of these nifty Axis dog tags which one of our readers, Derick Stackpole surprised us with!

Cheers and thanks for all the messages of support,  especially the guys following on Pistoheads!

Congratulations to the winners in GTC, Jeroen Bleekemolen, Dion Von Moltke,  Cooper McNeil and Alex Job Racing.

Thanks to Andrés Bermudez for the pit reporting!

The tail pipe also came off at some point...

Stints

After 12 hours of Gas, Sweat and Tears

Sebring: Update with 6Hour remaining

The Axis car is currently sitting in the front group in GTC class,  as far up as P1, no lower than P4 for the past two hours.    Amazing result so far,    I think we surpassed what out friends at Jalopnik gave us a chance to,  They were sure we would have crashed about an hour ago.

Still a huge amount of time to go,  absolutely anything can and probably will happen.  Punctures...Allan McNish....an angry Corvette...  I kid Allan, I kid..

45 minutes To Green....

Kuba Giermaziak taking #31 to the grid

The stint order.

Axis car will have to watch out for this scary monster lapping 30 sec or more a lap faster!

 (photos by Andres Bermudez)

Axis Qualifies P10 in Class for the 2013 Twelve Hours Of Sebring

Photo:Jim Hunter

This year the American Le Mans Series GT Challenge class, for Porsche GT3 Cup cars, is stacked with some of the best of the best of Porsche 911 drivers in the world.   Names like  Edwards, Lally, Bleekemolen, Estre, Faulkner, Pumpelly. Maassen.  Aces all.      In this shark pool jumps Team Axis in the number 31 car with our CG,  Carlos Gomez along with pros Kuba Giermaziak and Mario Farnbacher.

The top 9 qualifiers in class were all within 9/10th of a second of each other,  Kuba qualified the Axis car 1.6 seconds off the pace in P10.    

Practice had shown it would have been unrealistic to shoot for a higher position on the grid so the team, run by NGT Racing, decided to concentrate on making the car a comfortable as possible to drive for the grueling 12 hours.    That meant finding a good front-rear balance sacrificing some outright speed for more  even tire wear during the stints.

12 hours on the choppy, brutal concrete of Sebring is like 24 hours of wear and tear on the machines and the men on any other track.  

The objective is to survive the big day tomorrow... better than the other guys!   Go Axis.

Photo: Jamey Price

GTC Qualifying unofficial

1.  Andy Lally                 Dempsey / Del Piero Racing                2:05.446
2.  Jeroen Bleekemolen   Weathertech / Alex Job Racing            2:05.747
3.  Sean Edwards            Momo / NGT                                        2:05.747
4.  Spencer Pumpelly      Venezuela / Flying Lizards                   2:05.765
5.  Damien Faulkner        Florida Lottery / TRG                          2:05.910
6.  Jan Heylen                  Hertz / JDX Racing                             2:05.936
7.  Alexandre Imperatori  Flying Lizards                                      2:05.059
8. Andrew Davis             Dempsey- Del Piero Racing                 2:06.219
9. Kevin Estre                  BePositive.org/ TRG                            2:06.246
10. Kuba Giermaziak         Axis Of Oversteer / NGT                     2:07.057
11. Lawson Aschenbach   Competition Motorsports                       2:07.336

Audi Shocker: Fast or Crash

Photo: MSM/Jim Sykes/Jake Galstad

Veteran Allan McNish had a rather embarrassing crash in his R18 e-Tron on the very first lap of practice this morning at Sebring. Knowing Audi they probably had to slave away for like 10-15 minutes to totally rebuild that car...

One Audi out but the other R18 had the best time in the session:


Prototype 1 (P1) Top 3:
• Benoit Treluyer – No. 1 Audi Sport Team Joest Audi R18 e-tron quattro – 1:45.908 (127.129 mph)
• Lucas Luhr – No. 6 Muscle Milk Pickett Racing HPD ARX-03c – 1:46.648 (126.247 mph)
• Chris Dyson – No. 16 Dyson Racing Lola B12/60-Mazda – 1:49.373 (123.102 mph)

Prototype 2 (P2) Top 3:
• Simon Pagenaud – No. 551 Level 5 Motorsports HPD ARX-03b – 1:53.482 (118.644 mph)
• Tom Kimber-Smith – No. 41 Greaves Motorsport Zytek Z11SN-Nissan – 1:53.539 (118.585 mph)
• Marino Franchitti – No. 552 Level 5 Motorsports HPD ARX-03b – 1:54.577 (117.510 mph)

Grand Touring (GT) Top 3:
• Stefan Mucke – No. 97 Aston Martin Racing Aston Martin Vantage V8 – 2:00.786 (111.470 mph)
• Oliver Gavin – No. 4 Compuware Corvette Racing Chevrolet Corvette C6 – 2:00.923 (111.344 mph)
• Antonio Garcia – No. 3 Compuware Corvette Racing Chevrolet Corvette C6 – 2:00.992 (111.280 mph)

Prototype Challenge presented by Continental Tire (PC) Top 3:
• Pierre Kaffer – No. 81 DragonSpeed Mishumotors ORECA FLM09 – 1:55.935 (116.134 mph)
• Bruno Junqueira – No. 9 RSR Racing ORECA FLM09 – 1:57.084 (114.994 mph)
• Stefan Johansson – No. 8 BAR1 Motorsports ORECA FLM09 – 1:57.404 (114.681 mph)

GT Challenge (GTC) Tire Top 3:
• Spencer Pumpelly – No. 45 Flying Lizard Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 Cup – 2:05.687 (107.123 mph)
• Jeroen Bleekemolen – No. 22 Alex Job Racing Porsche 911 GT3 Cup – 2:05.745 (107.074 mph)
• Kevin Estre – No. 68 TRG Porsche 911 GT3 Cup – 2:06.189 (106.697 mph)

The Axis GTC car was P8 with a 2:06.919 lap by Kuba Giermaziak.   Super tight field in GTC.

Postcard From Sebring

Kuba Giermaziak jumps out of the number 31 Axis of Oversteer / Capital Managers / NGT Porsche GT3-GTC,  Mario Farnbacher hops in to continue the first practice session at Sebring.